The Elf in the Yellow Bucket Hat
by KobaltWolf
Summary: Legolas never sailed for the Undying Lands. As the apocalypse looms, he crosses paths with the Winchesters six times. (Rated M for coarse language and violence)


Disclaimer: I own neither _Supernatural_ nor _Lord of the Rings_ , created by Eric Kripke and J.R.R Tolkien, respectively.

Rated M for coarse language and violence.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Yellow Bucket Hat

The elf showed up six times.

Dean saw him first in Oregon, sitting straight-backed at the tavern bar. He remembers clearly because he thought the blond in the yellow bucket hat and ridiculously tight jeans was damn fine until he got a good look at the bugger's masculine jawline. After that mistake, he focused on his beer while the local wackjob regaled Sam with tales of the Cascade Cannibal.

It was a wendigo, of course, holed up near _Sunny Mountain German Heritage Camp for Boys_ , whose pre-tween campers had nonexistent survival skills and common sense to match. Thus, the Winchesters strapped on lederhosen, flashed some hastily compiled credentials, and were leading _Kumbaya_ in German by eight.

Dean had nearly forgotten about the blond by the time five campers disappeared in the night. He and Sam rushed to follow the trail, flare guns and knifes stuffed down their breeches. The cave wasn't hard to find and only one kid was partially eaten. Dean told him to walk it off. Sam set the wendigo on fire, and they sprinted into the forest like bats out of hell. Then they realized there was another.

"Stay together," Sam ordered, but the kids weren't listening. One flailed away, and Dean had to heave him back by his collar.

"Run and you die, got it?" he barked, happy-go-lucky camp counselor crap be damned. He and Sam shared a look over the boy's head. They had two flares and a pocket knife left between them. Running or not, they'd probably all die anyways.

The foliage to their right rustled violently. Then it was on their left. Then behind them. The brothers stood back to back, children sandwiched between them. Dean swore he'd light up the damn forest. No way in hell was he going out in lederhosen.

The leaves in front of Sam whipped side-to-side. The giant aimed and fired. Red light exploded in the clearing.

A keening wail rose in the air, but it wasn't dead.

Dean's finger tightened around the trigger. One shot. Miss and they'd get flayed. A patch of pallid skin flashed between the leaves. He gritted his teeth and fired. It missed.

Fuck.

So Dean did what any hunter would do: he pulled out his pocket knife and prepared to go mano a mano with a cannibalistic monster.

He didn't get to. A flaming arrow speared it through the eye socket. He, Sam, and the campers watched, dumbfounded, as the wendigo fled screaming, engulfed by flames.

Dean blinked. "Who the fuck shot that?"

"I did."

He whirled on his heel, pocket knife at the ready, then tried not to blush.

The blond from the tavern stood five feet away, a long bow in his hand and yellow bucket hat pulled down to his ears. "I apologize for not arriving sooner. Tracking its third compatriot took longer than I expected," he said in a voice masculine enough to make Dean twitch. "But I am glad to see that you dispatched the small one."

The campers quailed. Sam coughed. "Uh, _small_?"

Dean wanted to back his brother up—that thing had been fucking huge—but his mouth seemed to have stopped working. _Shit,_ the guy was pretty. Even in that God-awful hat. Men weren't supposed to be that pretty. It was wrong.

The blond arched an eyebrow. "Compared to the other two, certainly." His piercing blue eyes raked the brothers up and down. He sniffed, then frowned.

Dean had never felt uglier in his life.

With deft hands the blond bandaged the injured boy—he'd finally stopped crying, thank God—and led them back to camp. He effortlessly crossed the bog that Sam and Dean had slogged through in their hurry up the mountain. Dean swore he didn't even leave a footprint. It was only after the brothers had delivered the children, made up some shit about a bear, and decisively returned their lederhosen that they turned to question the strange blond.

He was gone.

"Shit," Dean swore.

*/*/*/*

They wondered about him for a while. Dean thought he was a ghost, like, a vengeful, monster-hunting ghost, but Sam insisted he was just another hunter. Boring. In any case, the blond slipped from their minds as they engaged demon after demon, monster after monster, until Dean was dragged into Hell itself. Four months later, he clawed his way into a world where, apparently, his brother was hanging off a demon, angels were a thing, and oh yeah, there was an apocalypse.

Dean convinced Sam to take a normal case—a vampire nest in Michigan—for the sake of the good old days. So they drove cross-country in awkward silence. By the time they zeroed in on the vamps' grungy barn, something else had already arrived.

"It's fresh," Sam said. His lip curled at the decapitated vamp lying in the driveway. "Whatever did it may still be here."

"Great." Dean hefted his machete. "We're gonna have words." No one infringed on his happy time.

Something inside the barn screamed.

The brothers exchanged grim looks and, with weapons ready to save whatever poor souls they could, barreled through the door.

A vampire tried to run past them.

Dean stepped forward and raised his machete with undisguised glee. He really needed to hack out his feelings. Then something silver whizzed through the air, and the vamp's head went flying like candy out of a piñata. A curved blade impaled itself, shivering, in the wood two inches from Dean's ear. He choked on his own spit.

Another scream ripped through the barn, and Dean's gut dropped as he realized it was coming from a _vampire_. Heads and bodies, all separated, littered the floor. The massacre was brutal enough to make Dean shift nervously from foot-to-foot. It had been a large nest, at least two dozen strong. If he and Sam had arrived first, they would've been blood bags within five seconds.

Then he saw blond. And a yellow bucket hat.

Dean and Sam watched, gobsmacked, as the stranger from _Sunny Mountain German Heritage Camp for Boys_ sliced through another vamp like butter. Blood sprayed onto the straw-ridden ground, yet the blond's skinny jeans and white dress shirt remained spotless as he danced over the corpses like a fucking ballerina. The final vampire, a short brunette, let out a blood-curdling wail as she was parted from her head.

"Fucking hell," Dean breathed. Sam shuddered beside him.

Piercing blue eyes turned to regard them coldly. Dean was sure his pulse sputtered. The blond stalked toward them, hand extended and strides purposeful. Dean raised his machete, but the hand passed him by, instead closing around the hilt of the blade embedded in the woodwork. The blond ripped it out and sheathed it in one smooth move. It was damn impressive.

Then he walked out of the barn.

"Hey, wait!" Dean barked. "Where the fuck do you think you're going, Blondie?"

The stranger froze.

"Uh, Dean?" Sam mumbled. "Maybe you shouldn't—"

"Shut up, Sammy. This douche ruined my hunt for a second time." Dean wouldn't normally call getting his ass saved 'ruining his hunt,' but he was annoyed. "I want some fucking answers." The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Second?" the blond asked after a moment. Dean wanted to punch him. His voice was like porn. "Ah, yes, my apologies. I remember now. You killed the dwarf wendigo."

" _Dwarf?!_ "

The blond turned to face them, lips curled in a smirk. "It was barely a wendigo at all, really."

"You mother fu—"

"What my brother means to say is, could we buy you a beer?" Sam cut in. His hand gripped Dean's shoulder like a vice. "It isn't often that three hunters show up to the same hunt." Sam tried for a winning smile, and it seemed to work as the blond's sneer faded slightly.

"Three hunters. . ." he murmured. "No, I suppose they don't." His glare unfocused.

"RUUAAARGH!" A skeletal figure shot out of the forest.

The blond's eyes widened, and he reached for his swords a second too late. The vamp slammed him to the dirt.

"Shit!" Sam cried, but Dean was there. His lips curled in satisfaction as his machete slid through the monster's flesh with a _snikt_. Blood sprayed the blond's face, scarlet against his ivory skin. The vampire's body collapsed, twitching, while its head rolled into a pile of manure.

The blond snapped to his feet, blades glinting in the moonlight. His eyes flickered around the clearing, and Dean thought he saw his ears twitch under the yellow bucket hat. After a tense moment, he straightened. "Thank you," he said with tangible hesitance. His head dipped, like, half an inch, but Dean just decided to roll with it.

"Yeah. You're welcome," he growled. "I'm Dean, that's Sam." He jabbed his thumb toward where he assumed Sam was glaring at him. "You want a drink or not?"

Blondie gave him a blank stare. Then he shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but I must be moving on." He turned on his heel.

Great. "Y'know, when someone saves your life, it's polite to introduce yourself."

The blond continued striding down the gravel driveway. His footfalls didn't make a sound. "I am Legolas."

Dean's brown knitted together, and he blinked. "Is that Spanish?"

But Legolas had disappeared.

*/*/*/*

The third instance barely merits mentioning. Sam thinks Dean was hallucinating, but Dean swears he saw Legolas's hat at Navy Pier. It bobbed past him while he was getting cotton candy. Five minutes later, one of the ferris wheel cars came down with a dead body inside it. Dean felt vindicated. Sam still thinks it was a suicide.

*/*/*/*

Legolas resurfaced in Missouri. Sam and Dean were scrambling to prevent the murder of the seventh son of a seventh son on the seventh day of the seventh month, one of the 600 seals, when Legolas showed up and stabbed the would-be murderer through the heart. The demon fizzled out in a flash of orange and its meat suit dropped to the ground with a _thud_.

Dean forlornly lowered his knife. "Dude, that was my kill."

Legolas snorted. "You were unable to kill a wendigo halfling. I couldn't trust you to dispatch a demon."

" _It was full-sized, you fucking bastard._ "

While Dean fumed, Sam convinced Legolas to join them for dinner. Legolas only agreed because he, quote, "hadn't eaten in a couple days." Of course, Legolas obliged to the standard tests, as did the Winchesters, so there they were, bandages wrapped around their hands, sitting in a booth permeated by the stench of grease.

Legolas poked his iceberg lettuce with the tip of his fork. "This has been dead for weeks."

"So has this," Dean shot back through a mouthful of delicious cheeseburger.

Sam cleared his throat. "Yeah, sorry," he said. "Nothing else was open." It was nearly midnight, after all, and even Joey's Roadside Diner was deserted. Dean was pretty sure their waitress was taking a nap in the kitchen. Awkward silence ensued, emphasized by Dean's obnoxious chewing. "So," Sam began, "you're vegetarian?"

Legolas nodded. "I see no reason to murder innocent fauna when I can instead nourish myself in less barbaric ways." He gave Dean a pointed look.

Dean chewed louder.

Sam kicked Dean's shin under the table. "That's very noble," he said.

"I agree," said the blond.

Sam was practically sweating. Dean didn't blame him. Those blue eyes were freaky. "Legolas is an interesting name. I've never heard it before," Sam said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Where are you from?"

Legolas's eyes narrowed. "Nowhere you would have heard of."

"You might be surprised. We travel a lot—"

"I said it's none of your concern," Legolas snapped.

Dean raised his eyebrows and set down his burger. "Whoa there, buddy. He was just asking about your name."

"And I am saying that you need not," the blond declared. His eyes flashed dangerously under the brim of he yellow hat.

Dean moved to rest one hand on the table and the other on his gun. "Hey, that's fine, but we just bought you dinner. And remember that time we saved your life? Yeah. You could at least be polite."

Legolas sneered, civility vanished. Dean suddenly thought that his expression looked more wendigo than hunter. "It was only due to your unnecessary intervention that I was endangered at all."

"Seriously, dude?" Dean hissed. "Some gratitude wouldn't kill you."

"May I remind you that I delivered your life first."

Dean was about ready reach over and slam the blond's ungrateful face into his sad plate of rabbit food when Sam gripped his forearm. "Look, I'm sorry if I offended you, Legolas. That was not my intention," Sam said earnestly. He looked at Dean and his grip tightened. "Maybe we should just call it a night."

The elder Winchester frowned but nodded. "Yeah. We have better things to do anyways. Like stopping the _apocalypse._ "

Legolas stood, salad untouched. Dean was suddenly made aware of how tall the blond was. "As do I," he said. He walked away, and Dean released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Douchebag," he mumbled.

The doors rattled.

Dean and Sam turned to see Legolas eyeing the doors in confusion. Then they heard the fluttering of wings, and Dean's gut dropped. He whirled around. Castiel sat in the bench Legolas had just left. Uriel stood beside him.

"Ah, hell," Dean groaned. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Neither answered.

"What," Dean said, "do I have something in my teeth?"

"You should not be here," Castiel murmured, half under his breath.

Dean frowned. "Hey, I've got a lot more right to be here than you two—"

"Dean, he's not talking to you," Sam said quietly. Dean frowned and followed his gaze.

Legolas stood rigid in the entranceway, both swords unsheathed. "I thought the Ainur had abandoned this realm," he said easily, but his muscles were coiled like a serpent's.

 _Ainur?_ Dean mouthed to Sam, who shrugged.

Castiel's jaw tightened. "And we you," he said. His eyes betrayed confusion.

Legolas's lip curled. "Then your wisdom has greatly waned."

Dean coughed to hide a chuckle.

"Hold your tongue, _Silvan_ ," Uriel snapped.

"How sad," Legolas mused. "Your eyesight has worsened as well. I am clearly of the Eldar." Was that European? "Tell me, have you been so corrupted that you forget Eru's First-Born?"

Uriel swelled up in rage so much that Dean considered poking the angel with a needle just to see if he'd explode. The hunter smiled at the image.

" _WE_ are his first-born!" Uriel roared.

The lights shuddered and the ground shook, but Legolas simply looked regretful. "You have grown closer to Balrogs than Istari," he said. Then he smashed through the glass door and disappeared.

"Shit," Dean mumbled. That actually worked? He'd thought supernaturally sealed doors were, like, unbreakable.

Castiel shot to his feet, blue eyes wide. "Go," he ordered Uriel, who vanished in a flash of light. Cas turned to the Winchesters. "There is another seal in Missoula. Keep it from breaking. I will join you shortly." Then he was gone as well.

"Seriously? Montana? That's all you got?" Dean cried. But it was just Sam, him, and the waitress just woken up from her nap. She was looking between them and the shattered door quizzically. The brothers left in a hurry.

They called Bobby and asked him to look up what an Eldar was—Ainur, Istari, and Balrog, too—because the Internet was completely unhelpful. The only hits they'd gotten were misspellings of the words _elder_ and Google autocorrecting Ainur to _anus_. They pulled into the salvage yard just as the sun cracked over the horizon. They'd barely sat down when Bobby slammed a book on the dining table in front of them and demanded to know what they hell they'd gotten themselves into.

The book looked ready to crumble at any moment, frayed at the edges and missing several pages, but Dean swore it smelled of honey. Cracked golden ink looped across its cover in a language he'd never seen.

"Um, we're not sure," Sam admitted. "That's why we called you."

Bobby glared like he had half a mind to kick them out, but then he sighed and collapsed into the chair across from them. "I found that an hour ago. Didn't even know I had it," he said. "Most of it's in a language so dead it was never alive, but some monk translated part of it into Latin." He looked at them seriously. "Just read it."

Sam obeyed, shoulders hunched and brow creased as he skimmed the Latin. Dean tried as well, but after two pages the words started to blur together. Latin had never been his best subject, and it was written in a faded green ink that snaked through the heavy black runes. His attention wandered to the illustrations. Every page had at least one and often more winding down the margins. The gilding had flaked off in many places, but they still glowed in the lamplight. Most were humanoid, some very tall, others very short. For several pages, the margins were filled exclusively by bearded men with gnarled noses and crazy eyes. Then there was an illustration of hairy feet. How many pages later, Dean lost track, but a noble, wizened face peered back, a crown on his brow. Below the original runic caption read _Elessar_ in Latin. Dean wondered what that meant. They turned the page.

An elderly figure robed in white greeted them. " _Istari_ ," Sam breathed, pointing to the caption.

"Yeah. Look on the next page," Bobby said.

They did.

"Fuck," Dean said.

A cavern gaped across the page, painted red and black and practically burning at the center. Out of its maw loomed a demonic tower of fire.

"That's a balrog," Bobby supplied. "Far as I can tell, it's s'posed to be some kinda fallen angel."

The brothers exchanged glances. "Anna sure didn't look like that," Dean said.

"She probably didn't look like an Istari either," Bobby growled. "But they're s'posed to be heavenly dicks, too."

"Wait," Sam said. "The Ainur are angels?"

Bobby grunted. "Looks like it. Before people started calling 'em angels."

"Then how would Legolas know about them? What's an Eldar?"

"They a cult?" Dean asked.

"Just keep reading."

Sam flipped through the pages as quickly as he could without tearing them. Some dude in black armor flashed past, along with a bunch of rings and a river of lava. Finally, he came to stop on a page with _Eldar_ scribbled across the top. None of the text had been translated—that had stopped a few dozen pages ago—but neither he nor Dean paid much attention. The page across from it was covered in illustrations. In one corner mist hung over a great city perched inside a ravine of waterfalls, while in another trees glowed white with the light of invisible lamps. Slender, pointy-eared figures draped in silken robes gathered around a harp so crisply drawn Dean could almost hear the music. But that was not what drew his eye. In the bottom right corner was drawn a familiar face, minus its yellow bucket hat.

"Holy shit," Sam said. Dean felt his jaw drop.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "I know they're pretty, boys, but monsters really ain't—"

"No, no, no. That's not it." Sam hefted the book and jabbed his finger at the illustration staring back with icy blue eyes. "That's Legolas, the weird hunter we ran into. Legolas is in this book."

Bobby frowned. Then his eyes widened in realization.

" _Balls_."

*/*/*/*

Castiel refused to tell them more about the contents of the book, saying it no longer mattered to the world. Dean's anger with the angel only grew. But soon Uriel betrayed his true goals, and Dean was forced to turn his attention to other things. Dean had no desire to hunt Legolas. Sure, the blond was a dick, but he'd saved his and Sam's asses. That meant something. So he was a bit disappointed when after a routine hunt in San Francisco and an argument with Sam, he found the blond downing tequila shots in a back alley bar.

"You wanna take this outside?" Dean asked even though the bar was nearly empty.

Legolas looked up at him from under the brim of his yellow hat, and Dean wondered if under it the blond's ears really were pointed. "Not particularly." Despite the dozen empty shot glasses lined up along the counter, his eyes glinted as clearly as ever.

Dean shrugged and pulled himself up to all six-and-a-quarter feet of his height. "So how are we gonna do this, then?"

Legolas raised an eyebrow and threw back another shot. He signaled the bartender for another. "Do what?"

"Look," Dean said as he lowered his voice. "I know what you are."

His lips quirked like he was amused, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm sure you do." He downed another. "I apologize for my. . .erratic behavior last we met. It has been many years since I've had to face the past."

"But you're so young!" Dean exclaimed in mock astonishment. "It couldn't be more than a few hundred."

". . .something like that."

"So what, _Eldar._ " Dean punched the word. "You some sorta monster from the dawn of time?"

The melancholy in Legolas evaporated. His nostrils flared. "My kind are as far from _monsters_ as is possible," he spat. "And the singular of Eldar is Elda, fool."

Dean held up his hands. "Oh. So sorry. You angels, too then?" Because he sure had the arrogance of one.

Legolas laughed a cold, short laugh and shook his head. "The Ainur have sunk far below what they once were. No, my kind arose long before Men, but long after what you call _angels._ " He turned a critical eye on Dean. "You intend to kill me?"

Dean flashed a grin he didn't really feel. "I am a hunter after all."

"As am I," Legolas mused. He looked down at his next tequila shot. "Perhaps some time outside would do me good."

Thus, Dean found himself sitting on a park bench overlooking the ocean, a who-knows-how-old immortal sitting beside him.

"You haven't made an attempt to stab me yet," Legolas observed.

"I'm kinda curious how this will play out."

Legolas smiled, but Dean had the feeling he wasn't smiling at him. "I suppose I have no need of this, now," he said as he took off the yellow bucket hat and held it in his hands.

Dean inhaled sharply. Sure enough, pointed ears peeked out from under the blond's braided locks. Dean had to admit that Legolas looked quite beautiful in a sharp kind of way, like the edge of a sword.

"I am not evil," Legolas said after a moment.

"Straight to the point," said Dean. "And I'm supposed to take your word for it?"

"I speak the truth," the blond said. "Should your Ainur friends arrive, though, they would have you believe otherwise."

"And why's that?"

Legolas turned from the ocean to stare at Dean. "They wish to end the Age of Man."

Dean sat a bit straighter. "Like Uriel."

The blond looked surprised. "So you know they seek to raise Melkor."

"Melkor?"

"You would call him Lucifer."

"Oh. Yeah, I know. But Cas is on our side."

Legolas frowned. "Cas?"

"Castiel," Dean elaborated. "The douche in the tan trench coat."

". . .I see." Legolas ran his eyes over the hunter, as if he were searching for something. Dean shifted uncomfortably. Then the blond smiled. "That is good to hear." He turned back toward the ocean. "Perhaps not all are as corrupt as I thought."

They sat in silence. Waves crashed against the bluff.

"How did you avoid them anyway?" Dean asked. "I mean, they went after you, like, immediately. And they can teleport."

Legolas's lips quirked. "I have lived many millennia. I have my ways."

"Shit you're old."

Legolas laughed for real this time. It sounded like bells. "I suppose I am."

"So where are the rest of you? The Eldar?" Dean asked.

The blond's smile faded. "They left this world long ago."

"Oh," Dean grunted awkwardly. "You didn't go with them?"

"I wanted to." Legolas gazed out at the horizon, and Dean recognized the shadow of regret and yearning in his eyes. "But I waited too long. The ocean has stopped singing. The way to Valinor is closed."

"So you're stuck here."

"Yes."

". . .that sucks, man."

"Indeed." Legolas's eyes seemed to flicker with the roll of the ocean.

Dean followed his gaze and squinted to see whatever the Elda saw, but it was just water.

Dean didn't kill Legolas that night. They sat for hours more as the moon moved across the sky and fog crept up from the bay. Legolas told him of great kings and warriors and those brave ones who were neither. And Dean sat and tried to keep his eyebrows from climbing off his forehead. Legolas spoke of his childhood in the Greenwood and of the shifting moods of its Elvenking. Then of a young Ranger who came to be known as King Elessar but whom Legolas called Estel. Dean remembered his portrait from Bobby's book. A chill ran down his spine as he realized that when Estel had looked at Legolas, he'd seen the same face Dean did now. Legolas spoke with a soft smile of a company of nine: him, Estel, another man, a dwarf, four hobbits, and an angel named Mithrandir, though Legolas insisted on calling him an Istari. "He was different from the angels you know," he said simply. The Fellowship was eventually separated, but Legolas recounted each member's tale with great care, and at the end murmured so softly that Dean barely heard him: "I have endured the Ages, but I ceased to live long ago."

Dean's heart sank for the immortal.

He perked up, though, when he learned that another name for the Eldar was _elves_. Legolas raised his chin indignantly as Dean burst out laughing. The blond declared that the name had been soiled by lesser beings taking it for themselves. "Jealous," he called them. That didn't make it any less funny.

The elf and the human parted as friends come dawn. Dean gave Legolas his cell number, and though they both knew he'd never use it, it made Dean feel better.

It also made the sixth and final time Dean saw Legolas more painful.

*/*/*/*

"What happened?" Dean growled.

Castiel had the decency to avert his eyes. "I—I was unable to arrive in time," he said. "I am sorry. I understand you were fond of him."

"He was a fucking good guy if that's what you mean," Dean spat.

Legolas lay splayed across the forest floor, blond hair cascading around him. He gripped a shattered sword hilt in both hands. A few feet away were strewn the splinters of his long bow. His bright blue eyes had been burned out of his skull.

"Had he come to us—"

"Had he come to you, he'd've died sooner!" Dean punched the trunk of a pine and gritted his teeth as blood ran down his knuckles.

Cas frowned. "Are you crying?"

"I'm in fucking pain!" Dean lied as he shook out his hand. "What do you think?"

Cas pressed his lips together in a thin line. "I had assumed the seal was safe. The Eldar were thought to have deserted this world at the end of the previous age."

"No, that was you jackasses." Dean shoved his finger at the angel and then at Legolas's body. "He stayed."

"Dean, calm down," Sam pleaded.

"I will not _calm down._ Why the fuck didn't you _tell_ us Legolas was a seal? We could've protected him!"

Cas stared at him sadly. "How?"

Dean opened and closed his mouth like a fish because he didn't know _how._ Legolas hadn't called him, and even if he had, Dean knew he wouldn't have arrived in time. But at least he could've tried.

They gave Legolas a hunter's funeral. Dean didn't know a damn thing about Elvish burial rights so he hoped it was okay. He clutched the yellow bucket hat as he watched its owner burn.

It wasn't until a year later that he returned to the park bench in San Francisco. He pulled the hat out and stared at it. Lucifer had risen despite it all, and with him rose a darkness even greater than the one the Fellowship had faced all those years ago. Legolas had fought the good fight for millennia, but he'd fallen, just like they all would. Dean stood and walked to the edge of the bluff. The waves pounded the rock below him, yet it didn't seem angry. He remembered the way Legolas had looked out at the ocean and wondered if the ocean longed for Legolas the same way.

He dropped the hat into the surf and murmured, "I hope you found your way home." It bobbed above the waves for a moment. Dean's better side fancied it was saying goodbye. Then it vanished beneath the sea foam, and he walked away.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*

 _Yellow Bucket Hat_ takes place during Seasons 3 and 4 of _Supernatural_ and, obviously, long after _Return of the King_. Legolas never sailed for the Undying Lands with Gimli and instead became trapped in the world of men. He lost faith in the Ainur (Valar and Maiar), who had been corrupted over time, and set out to fight the darkness himself. Eventually he grew bitter and shut away his past. He didn't feel the present world was worthy of what it had once been. Nonetheless, he continued to fight, crossing paths with the Winchesters several times, especially Dean, in whom he saw some of what Arda was supposed to be. Thus, he shared his tale with the hunter before he was found and killed by pro-apocalypse angels trying to break one of the 600 seals, extinguishing the light of the last of God's first-born.

Where Were Other _Lord of the Rings_ Characters?

Mithrandir, or Gandalf, is a Maiar (what Dean and Sam would call an angel), thus we can assume he is not dead. Most likely he is in Valinor, which could be a separate world or heaven depending on your point of view. Why didn't he help Legolas? The Istari were sent to Middle Earth to help defeat Sauron. As much as Gandalf may have grown fond of the Fellowship, he could not stay after his mission was complete.

The Elves, Frodo, and Bilbo also sailed for Valinor.

Because Legolas did not take Gimli across the ocean, the dwarf stayed in Middle Earth and passed away.

The other races of Middle Earth, excluding Elves and Men, most likely died out or passed from this realm over time.

I hope you enjoyed _Yellow Bucket Hat_. Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated. I will also try to answer any questions you may have. Thank you!


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